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Lumifer comments on Self-Congratulatory Rationalism - Less Wrong
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Comments (395)
That's an... interesting definition of "rational".
Puts on Principle of Charity hat...
Maybe TheAncientGreek means:
(1) a belief is rational if it can be supported by a sound argument
(2) a belief is rational if it can be supported by a valid argument with probable premises
(3) a belief is rational if it can be supported by an inductively strong argument with plausible premises
(4) a belief is rational if it can be supported by an argument that is better than any counterarguments the agent knows of
etc...
Although personally, I think it is more helpful to think of rationality as having to do with how beliefs cohere with other beliefs and about how beliefs change when new information comes in than about any particular belief taken in isolation.
There isn't a finite list of rational beliefs, because someone could think of an argument for a belief that you haven't thought of.
There isn't a finite list of correct arguments either. People can invent new ones.
I can't but note that the world "reality" is conspicuously absent here...
That there is empirical evidence for something is good argument for it.
Arguments of type (1) necessarily track reality (it is pretty much defined this way), (2) may or may not depending on the quality of the premises, (3) often does, and sometimes you just can't do any better than (4) with available information and corrupted hardware.
Just because I didn't use the word "reality" doesn't really mean much.
A definition of "rational argument" that explicitly referred to "reality" would be a lot less useful, since checking which arguments are rational is one of the steps in figuring what' real.
I am not sure this is (necessarily) the case, can you unroll?
Generally speaking, arguments live in the map and, in particular, in high-level maps which involve abstract concepts and reasoning. If I check the reality of the stone by kicking it and seeing if my toe hurts, no arguments are involved. And from the other side, classical logic is very much part of "rational arguments" and yet needs not correspond to reality.
That tends to work less well for things that one can't directly observe, e.g., how old is the universe, or things where there is confounding noise, e.g., does this drug help.
That was a counterexample, not a general theory of cognition...
Well, it's not too compatible with self congratulations "rationality".